Feeling Your Feelings: Two Different Scenarios

Here are two different scenarios:

Scenario One:

You wake up in the morning, and you remember a business call with a difficult client you have later that day. You are immediately filled with dread, and your Monger is talking a mile a minute. You tell yourself, "Change your thoughts, think positive, and it will be fine." Every time the feeling of dread comes up, you tell yourself to change your thought. So all day long, you push the feeling under the surface, ignoring the dread and pretending it isn't here. By the time the phone call comes around, you might be feeling pretty good. In fact, you write at the top of your paper, "You got this! No one can get you down!!" The phone call comes and goes, and although the client was still belittling and you barely got through it without bursting into tears, you got through it! (Yay!) You are quickly on to the next thing and already worrying about what to have for dinner.

Scenario Two:

You wake up in the morning, and you remember a business call later that day. You are immediately filled with dread, and your Monger is talking a mile a minute. Hmm, what's that about, you wonder? And you ask yourself just to label what you are feeling. You are feeling insecure and nervous. You remember that the last time you had this call with this client, it didn't go well, and he was particularly harsh with you. When you arrive at work, you start brainstorming how you can help it go better. You know you are 100% prepared for the meeting, so it isn't your lack of prep. It is the client's tone and communication style. You put a post-it note on your computer that says, "He will be harsh. It is not about you" to remind yourself that it isn't about you; he is just harsh. When you hang up the phone, you don't burst into tears (which is a step up from last time), but you still feel like something was missing. The client was particularly belittling, and the post-it note helped but not enough. On your way home, you re-hash the conversation, and you remember it went off the rails when he asked for more details. He is such a detail person, and you just don't think like that. So you decide to ask a co-worker to help you drill down on the details. Maybe that will help for next time? You will have better answers, AND the sticky note will remind you it isn't about you.

Similar situations two different outcomes—the difference is that you are more present to the whole situation in scenario two. You are present to your thought, feelings, and actions, and you are present to your client's thoughts, feelings, and actions. You are engaged in your life. You recognize there is no perfect right way. This process is trial and error and can get messy. But your overall goal for your life is to be as present and engaged as possible.

In scenario one, you are surviving life. You are moving through life, trying not to get snagged by uncomfortable feelings and white-knuckling it through unpleasant situations. You aren't trying to find a resolution, and you aren't diving any deeper than necessary.

Both scenarios work. (Obviously, I have a bias towards scenario two.) Because scenario two allows you to engage fully in your life and I believe that diving deep into our lives is what living happier is all about. AND I know that one day you might do scenario one, and one day you might do scenario two. There isn't a 100% right way. There might be times in your life when all you have time for is scenario one, and there might be times when you can dive into scenario two. That is OK.

My wish for you is that you start thinking about these two scenarios and be a little curious:

Which scenario do you engage in more often? Do you wish that were different?

How would you change your life, so scenario two happens more often?

What changes would you have to make?

How hard are those changes?

What are some baby steps you can take to add more of scenario two to your life?

World Mental Health Day—What if there is no Happy Ending?

Today is World Mental Health Day.

If you are like me, you read that statement, and immediately you think of those in your life who live with diagnosable mental health issues, anxiety, depression, bipolar, or schizophrenia. But truthfully, we all need to be showing up for our mental health every day. This isn't just about recognizing mental health disorders; this is about prioritizing our lives' emotional and spiritual experiences.

Unfortunately, there is so much bias around mental health.

Advice runs rampant on how to FEEL better.

We should:

• change our thoughts,

• chose happy,

• think positive,

• be grateful,

• count our blessing,

• soldier on,

• pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,

• get a massage,

• take a bubble bath,

Basically, snap out of it.

The stigma that exists around mental health is that you SHOULD be able to heal yourself. You SHOULD be able to feel better. And if you can't, you are a weak person.

That is why this day is about MORE than just bringing awareness for those living with a diagnosable mental health disorder. I believe we are in the middle of a reckoning when it comes to mental health.

As I write this post, I keep thinking about a recent interaction with a client. He leaned back in his chair and said to me, "What if there is no happy ending? What if all my life I have been trying to make sure there is a happy ending and there just isn't one?."

I paused and took in the enormity of what he had just said. I knew right where he was. I knew that feeling. I could remember having that same dreadful ah-ha while sitting in my therapist's office.

At the end of the session, I said, "Trust me, that realization is so jarring and painful, but I also want you to look at it from another perspective. What if that thought is actually freeing? What if that means you can stop hustling, reframing, pretending, changing your thoughts, and changing your vibrations all the time? What if you could just be whatever you are without always trying to find the happy ending?"

What if there is no happy ending?

I believe that our constant chase for a happy ending is at the crux of our stigma around mental health.

The belief is we SHOULD be feeling happy, and if we aren't, something is wrong with us, and we had better be trying our hardest to be happy.

And if that doesn't work well THEN, you can try a therapist or, worse, medication (gasp!!), but don't tell anyone about your struggle. Don't share it because then THEY will know that you aren't happy.

Because what we are really saying as a society is we don't want to see your pain. We don't have time for it. We don't have the patience for it. Pain gets in the way of productivity. Pain is messy. Pain is out of control.

But pain? Real pain? That means you are living life. That means you are risking, feeling, trying, loving, and living.

We treat happiness as a gold star prize if we work hard enough, hustle enough, or strive enough. As if HAPPY was the be-all-end-all for our lives. Happy is just one of many other emotions we feel in a day, along with sadness, angry, joy, fear, insecurity, and doubt. As we live our day-to-day lives, we feel ALL of those emotions.

It is when we get stuck on the happy ending that our mental health goes out the window. Depression and anxiety are hard enough, but when the world is cramming our minds with the idea that we HAVE to be happy and it is an easy 1-2-3 step to get there, we are in trouble.

We judge those who struggle with mental health issues because THEY haven't found the way to find their permanent happy ending. When in reality, we are all deluding ourselves that a happy ending actually exists.

There is no happy ending, but there is a wide range of feelings. Today alone, I have felt happiness in talking with a new friend, doubt and insecurity in the issues we talked about, fear in some of the ways she challenged me, sadness over some physical health issues I have been having, and joy in finding a new podcast that I can listen to. All of that before noon!!!!

That whole experience and wide range of emotions allow me to live a more present and connected life because I am present for ALL of those emotions. I am not trying to design and hustle my life to make it look happier or feel happier; I am just living my life and all the messy thoughts and emotions that come with it.

To me, world mental health day is more than just bringing awareness to those in our lives who deal with diagnosed mental health issues. It is a day to recognize that mental health is something we all need to take seriously. Feeling our emotions, not running from pain, admitting our fears and doubts, showing our vulnerabilities, those things WILL help us live happier, richer, fuller lives. Recognizing that we aren't just trying to get the gold star of happiness, we are trying to build a whole life.

A life that includes: risking, loving, striving, resting, being irrational, crying, laughing, wanting to throw something, needing a hug, not being able to leave the couch, walking through the forest, kissing, picking flowers, seeing a long lost friend, missing a loved one, nursing a broken heart, unexplainable crying, laughing so hard you pee your pants, meeting your best friend for happy hour, sharing a joke with your brother, greeting friends at your parent's funeral, sending a card to a friend for no reason, swimming on a hot day and on and on and on.

So as I said to my client. There is no happy ending. There is a rich, vibrant, challenging tapestry of life events and emotions, and the only way to experience that is if we take care of our mental health and stop trying to create happy 100% of the time.

The Inner Critic and Grief

Almost 12 weeks ago, my Dad died. Eight weeks ago, I shared the news to my email list, and I haven't mentioned a word of it since. I have announced a new website, shown pictures of my new office, but I haven't talked much about the foundational shift and what at times feels like an unbearable loss in my life. Today, as I was making my coffee, I was asking myself, "Why not? "What's up with that?" I who believe and teach the phrase "embrace the mess" haven't been doing so in a public way. I have been painting it pretty for the world, which isn't how I want to live my life. I realized my Monger had taken over.

Here's a bit of what my Monger and my Biggest Fan had to say about it.

No one cares about your suffering. Everyone suffers, and when we share our suffering and support each other, it makes life feel less lonely. Pretending you aren't suffering because 'everyone suffers' isn't helping anyone. 

Everyone loses a parent. True. But YOU don't lose a FATHER every day. This relationship was one of the most important in your life, so YES, it will be hard and life-altering and all that 'messy' stuff. By stuffing down your grief and pain, you are also stuffing down all the beautiful, loving aspects of the relationship. 

Stop being a cry baby. Cry all you want to, honey. Life is about pain and sorrow and joy and laughter, so go ahead, cry, sob, shake your fists in anger, and then later, you will find yourself laughing and sharing. THAT is living a life. It gets exhausting, and it feels overwhelming, but it is living. Pretending all is well, denying the sadness, packing your schedule with STUFF, so you don't have to deal. That is running that isn't living (and honestly, it is MORE exhausting and overwhelming).

You teach about living happier, not about grief. Yes, but grief is a part of life and a part of living happier. And I am finding NOTHING brings out the Monger like grief. Grief knocks us off our game and brings up all kinds of scary sh*t, which FREAKS out our Monger, who then tries to 'fix the situation by telling us how wrong we are for grieving.

You should share it when you are through it, not now. There is no through, not on this one. There is learning how to hold the hole left by the loss of my Dad differently—learning how to live with the loss. Learning how to have the victory and reach for the phone and realize he isn't there to call. Learning how to move through those situations will take years, if not my lifetime.

So here are some new phrases I am going to try to adopt:

Just Do You. You don't have to have everything figured out. Own what comes up. Honor it and do your best to navigate the world.

The world won't always get it. Looking for approval on how to do it from the outside world won't always work in your favor. So stop looking there. Trust and be thankful for the people you have who consistently show up (no matter how few).

This sh*t's hard. And that's ok. Honor that this season in life is hard. Stop running.

Stop trying to paint it pretty. It isn't always pretty, but it isn't always ugly either. It just is. Life isn't black and white; it is a big beautiful swirl of color embrace it.

Compassion Compassion Compassion. For yourself and those around you.

There is a temptation for me as a counselor/writer to act like I have it all together. But I believe we learn the most when we share our messy stories, not our pretty ones. So that is what I am doing today.

How Do You Feel Your Feelings?

Whenever I lead a stress management workshop, one of the themes I talk about is feeling your feelings. Anxiety creates "a buzz" that keeps us protected from our emotions. We convince ourselves that feeling anxious, worrying about the to-do list, or being a better person is WAY better than dealing with the actual pain we are feeling. Anxiety masks what is going on; it allows us to 'get high' on the safe, numb aspects of our life and keeps us blissfully unaware of the real pain that is there. You can read more about the theory here: detoxifying from worry.

Inevitably, I will get resistance from the audience about the idea of feeling our feelings. It goes something like this, "If I paid attention to my feelings all the time and talked about them all the time, my conversations would be nothing but loss and depression. And I don't want to get stuck there." I totally get it. It was just a few months ago I said to my nearest and dearest, "How am I suppose to feel all these feelings AND live my life!?"

There is no absolute in feelings. There is no RIGHT. If you look at psychology advice around feelings, you will hear everything from feel all your feelings through to their end, so don't let your feelings control you. And I believe that advice comes out of the two extreme ways that people deal with their feelings:

Type 1: Lives in denial. They appear happy, content and tend to have a smile on their face most of the time. If you look deeper, denial tends to be the name of the game. They rarely express emotion and tend to be anxious, using many numbing devices to deal with said emotions (drinking, eating, TV watching, playing video games, etc.

Type 2:  Lives in their emotions. They express how they feel, whether through constant sharing, bouts of anger, or crying jags. They are very aware of how they feel and tend to get stuck in one emotion or the other (e.g., anger or sadness). Their emotions control them, so they lose control in meetings or have trouble getting things done due to fear or sadness.

The danger comes when you ping between the two extremes of Type 1 and Type 2. Sometimes when individuals stay in Type 1 for too long, they will bounce to Type 2 for a period just so the feelings have a way to express themselves.

So to the people who live in denial about their feelings, we give the advice, "Feel your feelings," and to the people who feel everything, we say, "take action, get out of your feelings." And what tends to happen is we take the advice that we are already doing. So Type 1 continues just to take action, and Type 2 continues to feel their feelings.

So what should you do? Pay attention and breathe. Know yourself. Which of these two extremes is your preference? If you are a denial fan, start taking the time to listen to those feelings more often. If you give too much awareness to your feelings, start putting them aside to take some small actions.

You can learn to deal with your emotions in a healthy way rather than making the choice to expressing them inappropriately all the time. We can get stuck, either way, stuck in feelings or stuck in denial. The point of living happier is to get unstuck.

As I tell my audiences, with any grief or pain or loss, you can't 'stay in it' all the time. You have to pull out for your sanity and the sanity of those around you. AND you can't 'stay out' all the time. You have to cry, grieve, and be angry at the appropriate times.

 Bottom line---feelings are challenging.

Here are ways to deal with your feelings:

• Throughout the day, acknowledge what you are feeling--just notice it. You don't have to express it or share it, just be aware of it. When we bring awareness to the feelings, they lose some steam, which is helpful for both types.

• After you acknowledge it and notice it and it has lost some steam. Ask yourself, is there something I want to DO to express this emotion, e.g., lovingly confront someone, write a letter, talk to a friend, do something physical.

• When the feelings get too much, do something physical--if you are happy; dance, if you are angry; throw some old dishes. If you are sad, ask for a hug or cry.

• Have safe people you can talk to about your emotions.

• Remember, there is no RIGHT way. There is just knowing yourself. If you are being honest with yourself and accepting of yourself, you are doing an awesome job! Remember, you are doing the best you can with what you have right now.

Crying in Public: Healthy Release or Embarrassing Weakness?

One complaint many of my clients have is their tendency to cry when they get overwhelmed. While crying is a perfectly normal response to pain, frustration, and sadness, it can get in the way. The problem is when those tears start leaking out at inappropriate times, at work, in a big meeting, in the middle of a conflict, with a stranger, etc. Crying is an extremely vulnerable act, especially when you have been told that it is manipulative, weak, or controlling. Crying has gotten a bad wrap--sometimes you just need to leak.  But what do you do when your crying goes from healing to embarrassing?

Don't apologize.  Once you feel the tears sting your eyes, the first thing you want to do is apologize. Apologizing implies you are doing something wrong. You are just crying and exhibiting an emotion. You aren't hitting or hurting anyone. Remind yourself there is nothing wrong with crying. When you apologize, that makes the other person feel responsible for you and diminishes you as well. Own the fact that you are crying without apologizing.

Take a Step Back. Tears are most likely coming from a place of frustration and anger. As women, we are often taught that anger or frustration is not ok, so we push it down until it bubbles up as tears. Give yourself a chance to pause and breathe. If you can keep talking, do so, but if not, ask to continue the conversation later or ask to take a break and come back to you.

The goal with these two steps is to break the cycle of—start crying—ridicule self—assume everyone else is ridiculing you—apologize profusely—cry harder. Instead, turn the cycle into start crying—breath—remind self that crying is ok, it is just an emotion—keep talking or ask to take a break—return and keep going.

The first two concepts are how to handle crying; this next concept is how to start decreasing the inappropriate crying tendency.

Look back: What is it really about? Too often, my clients get so caught up in the shame of crying that they never look back to see what they were so upset about? What was happening? Were you angry, frustrated, hurt? Did you feel attacked, betrayed, powerless? Start noticing a pattern in what triggers you.

For one of my clients, this process was life-changing. When she stopped apologizing and started embracing that she was a crier, it took some of the sting out of it. She was still embarrassed, and she still didn't like the fact that she was crying, but when she stopped apologizing, it just was "just something that happened" rather than the significant EVENT it had been in the past.

As she started looking back and asking, "what is this really about?" She noticed that A LOT was going on behind the scenes. She realized how much she had swallowed her feelings of fear, frustration, and anger. She felt powerless at work, and when there was any confrontation, she felt more and more powerless and then more and more confused so that she would cry out of frustration. Her crying was a sign of her not speaking up for herself, the incongruence between how she was feeling inside and what she was sharing on the outside. She knew she had a lot to contribute, and she was just scared to do it. Over time we started unraveling her fear, frustration, and anger. We started giving her a voice in our sessions and developing strategies for using that voice in the workplace.

She learned she needed to:

• speak up for herself more often in little ways, so co-workers and superiors didn't just bulldoze her

• ask for a break or a chance to reflect and come back to the problem

• discuss things one-on-one rather than in a large group,

• value her inner sensitivity, that piece of her gives her a lot of insight that her co-workers miss out on. She just needed to channel it differently so it could be heard in the workplace culture.

When she has a confrontation at work, her first response isn't crying but speaking up for herself. Leaking is still a part of her life, just not as much as it use to be.

Watering Our Hurts

We all have hurts, from the little hurts of someone cutting us off in traffic to the significant hurts of someone breaking our hearts or betraying us in a big way. Hurt sucks. But too often, we get stuck in re-living those hurts. My aunt calls it "Watering your hurts." Watering your hurts means you cultivate them. You make sure your hurts stay fresh and green. You water them by re-telling them over and over and over. You keep a running list of all the times you have been lied to, betrayed, misled, diminished, or disrespected. Anytime you feel a little scared or unsure, you whip out those hurts, and you start watering them. Making sure they stay fresh and green so you can constantly refer to them and say, "SEE that won't happen again, as long as this reminder stays fresh, I won't ever be hurt again."

And that is the big lie of the concept watering of our hurts. Watering our hurts doesn't keep us from being hurt again. Watering our hurts doesn't protect us from anything. All it does is keep us stuck in pain and agony. The only one we are hurting as we care and cultivate our past pain is ourselves.

A great example of this is in a new relationship. You meet someone, and you hit it off, and things are going GREAT! You are blissful for the first three months, and then things start getting a little rocky (as any relationship will). Miscommunications happen, conflicts occur, and doubts start to trickle in. You pull out your tray of hurts, and you start pruning them and watering them and remembering every time you have been in a relationship, and it has gone wrong. You remind yourself of every betrayal and lie you were told. So the next time you see your new friend, you are full of anger and resentment. In his/her mind, things were temporarily rocky as you move through the inevitable growing pains from the honeymoon phase to the real-life relationship. In your mind (because you are referencing only your past hurts), he/she is an assh@le whose sole motivation is to betray you. Watering our hurts keeps us stuck in the past. Watering our hurts forces us to assume that our hurts are destined to repeat, which is just not true. So what are we to do, let our past hurts die? What about all that PAIN and agony?

Make peace with your past hurts. This peace process involves experiencing and letting go of all the emotions tied to this particular hurt. This process can take many forms and is highly individualized. You may need to talk to someone neutral to figure out what works best for you. It might help to talk to a friend or visit the person who hurt you. Once you have made peace and are ready to let it go, I am a fan of a ceremony. My favorite: Write down everything that happened. You can write a letter to the person who hurt you, you can tell it in a story. The goal is to get the juicy hurt filled emotions out on paper. And then destroy it, e.g., rip it up, burn it in a ceremonial fire.

Write down what you learned from that particular hurt. Now that you have released all those hurt feelings, think about what you learned from that relationship? Taking what you learned, what boundaries can you set, or what needs can you speak that will help prevent that hurt from coming up again. (remember no guarantees here). Let's say someone cheated on you in a past relationship, and you want to let that hurt go. Maybe you learned you need 100% transparency in a relationship or consistent communication if your partner is running late. 

Practice Self Compassion. Even though you have burned them or destroyed your hurts, you will still be tempted to return to the crime scene. So when you are tempted to pick up that watering can, practice self-compassion and remind yourself you are not your past hurt. Move forward with the lesson you learned from that hurt. Repeat as often as necessary.

Spiraling Up

Ugh, life lessons! I think most of us have love-hate relationships with life lessons. As we move through life, we all have things we need to learn, forgiveness, shame, resilience, relationships, jobs, etc. Sometimes the lesson is simple, and sometimes it takes us years to master it. We keep repeating life lessons, and we learn more and more until we have them mastered. I call this phenomenon spiraling up. Spiraling up means we might come back to the lesson, and it might FEEL like we are re-learning the same lesson, but we are experiencing it at a new level with new insight, a new situation, a new challenge. And then, when we have that mastered, we will spiral up to another place.

A client of mine came to see me after her divorce. She was run down and depleted. She had completely lost herself in her marriage and had no sense of self. Now, post-marriage, she wanted to make some changes. We worked together on figuring out what mattered to her, setting boundaries, saying no, and developing a strong sense of who she was. She, in essence, started learning the life lesson: To take care of yourself, you need to set firm boundaries.  Then she entered a new relationship, and this was a new test. She had figured out how to set boundaries with friends/acquaintances, but this was the next level: a significant long-term relationship.

A few months into the relationship, she came back to see me. She was very frustrated with herself because she struggled with telling him no, not losing herself, keeping her own life, setting boundaries, etc. She said, "I thought I had this lesson, and now I am re-learning EVERYTHING," and then I reminded her, no, you are just spiraling up--hitting the lesson at the next level. You still have all that you learned before. Now you are learning how to implement it at THIS level. It is a whole new place. You aren't re-learning; you are learning more. With this new perspective, she was able to relax a bit and remember that she knew how to set boundaries, she knew who she was, and she wasn't the same woman who had married her first husband. She just needed to apply that knowledge to this new relationship.

When you think about life lessons as spiraling up, it gives a new perspective. While we do repeat lessons, we don't unlearn all we have implemented before. We repeat the lesson one step up with the new perspective, new challenges, and new information that we didn't have the last time the lesson came into our lives. So the next time you have a sense of deja vu when it comes to a life lesson, remind yourself, you are just spiraling up.

The Power in Leaking

Last week on our first day of vacation in San Francisco, I had a literal run-in with a Segway. Newsflash: Segways can be dangerous. So here I am 10 days later in a walking boot and crutches--no breaks, just a bone bruise, and ankle sprain. To say the least, it has been a challenging couple of weeks.

Frustrations can hit at any time, whether it is a health issue, getting the kids ready to head back to school, a conflict with your spouse, a challenging conversation at work. Life certainly throws us curveballs. And that is where the concept of leaking comes in.

Leaking, a term coined by my nearest and dearest, means releasing emotion through your eyes. So it isn't that someone has necessarily hurt you or that you are sad. It is an overwhelm of emotion coming out through your eyes. It can be frustration, fear, sadness, or even happiness. I am a HUGE fan of leaking. It isn't the ugly cry; it is the 'I don't know why I am crying" cry. It is leaking.

Last weekend after the Segway crash, I went to my cousin's baby shower. In my boot, using a knee scooter. I was so excited to be there (the shower is what brought us to San Francisco) to celebrate her future little one. However, by the time we got home, I was exhausted. As we walked into the house, I just started leaking—a release of the pressure cooker a bit.

Studies show tears are healthy. Tears release toxins and encourage endorphins which is an incredible combination. Leaking gets such a bad wrap, but it is a normal, healthy reaction to life's stresses in so many ways. This week I have been doing A LOT of leaking. It has been normal for me to start tearing up and say, "I just need to leak a little bit." And my nearest and dearest hugs me, and off we go. He knows it isn't his fault. He knows he didn't DO anything to make me sad. He knows that I am overwhelmed, and I will be ok.

So tomorrow, when your son criticizes you for putting the wrong jelly on his sandwich, and your boss ridicules you for missing a deadline, and you feel overwhelmed, remember it is ok to leak. It is ok to give yourself a release of emotion. It is ok to take a pause and remember that leaking is healthy.

Constructively Acknowledging Anger

 Anger is one of the most misunderstood emotions. We don't know how to acknowledge our anger constructively, so we tend to have two reactions to anger; both are inappropriate.

Stuff it: I remember a client from a few years ago. She just found out her husband had cheated on her. After she had told me the story, filled with sacrifices she had made and many ways he had treated her poorly, I asked how she felt hearing the story. And she replied, "I am just hurt." "Hurt, I said, that is understandable." "I, for one, am pretty angry," and she looked at me, completely startled. "Angry?" she asked. And I said, "yes, in hearing this story, I am angry at your husband for treating you this way" She immediately started crying and, in a small, meek voice, said, "me too, I am just not comfortable saying it." We spent a large chunk of our time together, helping her learn how to feel and express anger in a healthy way—learning how to find her voice. Speak up for herself. Recognize what anger felt like and how to share it in healthy, productive ways.

Share it: Or maybe you are ok with your anger. A former client of mine was very comfortable with her anger. She would yell at her kids, belittle her husband and tell anyone she knew how she felt about them. She didn't enjoy expressing herself in this way, but she had vowed to herself after watching her mother be so meek and mild to her father that she wasn't going to walk through life without expressing herself. She and I spent much of our time together working on healthy ways to express her anger and figuring out what was at the root of her anger. Frequently what we THINK we are angry about is merely a trigger to what is happening in the present moment. We might be yelling at our child for missing the bus, but really we are frustrated because we are feeling like less of a parent by them missing the bus. There are several inappropriate ways of expressing anger: Passive-aggressive, talking behind someone's back, yelling at someone, hitting someone, or belittling someone.

How to deal with anger productively

Express it. If you are filled with rage, let it out. Throw dishes, throw eggs, hit a pillow, scream at the sky, write a nasty letter, turn up the music and dance your ass off. Do something physical that is not directed toward another person to release it from your body.

Share it calmly. Share it with a friend, partner, or loved one. This can help you get to the cause of the anger, the source. It is important to do this after you have expressed it. If during the conversation you realize that you are taking the anger out on the person you are talking to--repeat step 1.

Take steps to heal it.  If it is an unexpressed need, express the need and work toward getting it filled. If it is an injustice, share the injustice and work to resolve it. If it is a shame trigger, work to heal your past. Take productive action.

Anger doesn't need to be feared. Anger is a healthy, everyday part of life. Anger shows us when we are feeling wronged, and when we express it productively, we can change ourselves and the world.

The Opposite of Love is Fear

We have all heard the quote, "The opposite of love is fear." Meaning that when we approach life, we can approach it one of 2 ways from a place of fear or a place of love. As someone who deals with 'fear facing' a lot in my work, I have recently been thinking about this quote. It is a wonderfully simple quote and a hugely complex concept. If you think of your life, every act you engage in, every decision you make comes from love or fear.

You decide to empty the dishwasher AGAIN.

Acting out of Love: Your attitude is peaceful and calm. You love giving back to your family, and even if they might not appreciate it all the time, this is a way you show them how much they mean to you. However, you decide that maybe it is time for your kids to step up and start doing more to learn responsibility and care for themselves. You make a mental note to talk to them about it. 

Acting out of Fear: You do it, but you are bitter and angry the whole time. Your motivation comes more from 'getting one up' or 'feeling like a martyr' than love. The act LOOKS loving but buried way down (or maybe not even way down) is fear. You are acting out your fear of not being good enough, 'they won't love me unless I DO something for them' or 'I have to prove my worthiness by doing.'

You stay late at work to respond to your bosses' last minute request (which, of course, needed to be done yesterday)

Acting out of Love: You recognize your boss is behind the gun too from his boss, and although he might not have the best leadership skills, he is doing the best he can with what he has. You offer a silent blessing for him and finish up our work as quickly as possible. You realize that, for the most part, you like your job, and these last-minute things are easy to overlook in the grand scheme of things. OR you realize it is time to start looking for another job because even though you can understand why everything is last minute, you just don't work well in this environment. 

Acting out of Fear: You angrily start working on the job. You finish the task and leave the office still steaming. The minute you get home, you pick a fight with your partner (honestly, you want to tear your boss's head off, but your partner is more forgiving). Your fear is 'what if I am not good enough to find another job' or 'what if this is the best I can do.'

Your mom calls you and starts telling you the same story for the millionth time. 

Acting out of Love: You recognize she loves telling stories, and she loves sharing her stories with you. You realize that even though you are busy and tired, you are lucky to have a mom who wants to share so much of her life with you. You take a deep breath and try to listen as if it were the first time you heard it. You approach the story with a new curiosity and enjoy it. If you don't have time to talk, you ask if you can call her back, and then you do!! 

Acting out of Fear: You half-listen to the story rolling your eyes and mimicking her. You cut her off as soon as possible with a quick "yes, mom. I have heard this story before." You know you hurt her feelings, but you are just too busy to deal with this. You fear "maybe someday I will drive my kids crazy with my stories too" or "I am scared that I am going to lose mom before I am ready."

When we act out of love, we are coming from a place of openness and peace. We are more grounded and honest. It doesn't mean we are victims or take rude behavior; it means that we take the time to understand the 'other person's perspective. Rather than immediately going in to blame or resentment, we pull back a bit to get a bigger picture.

When we act out of fear, we are closed and shallow. We are in a self-protect mode and therefore tend to lash out at others and ourselves.

Fear is a tricky beast. Frequently our egos don't want us to acknowledge the fear. So our ego throws up the smokescreen of blame and resentment to prevent us from going deeper. Rather than looking at what we might be afraid of at that moment, we immediately blame the 'other' for all our problems.

Bottom line--fears are scary. We don't want to acknowledge them, and it is against our nature to do so. AND as we get in the habit of being honest with ourselves and living from a place of love and not fear, life becomes much easier and happier. Carrying around all that bitterness and resentment is wearing and exhausting!!

So for today, as you approach the decisions of your life, ask yourself am I acting from a place of fear or love? If the answer is fear, dig a little deeper and ask yourself, what am I really afraid of here? And then give yourself some loving support around that fear. Fears are normal. Unacknowledged fear is toxic

Self Help Run Amuck

Self Help is an amazingly wonderful industry. The idea that we can learn, grow and feel better about our lives and become happier through reading a book or listening to a lecture is empowering. However, I know for myself and people who enjoy exploring the Self Help world, we can get stuck in unhealthy patterns and beliefs for the sake of being a better human being.

 Now and then, I will run into a person, an acquaintance, a client, even myself from time to time, and think, 'yep, that is a case of self-help run amuck.'

 For me, the phrase "Self-help run amuck" is defined as someone who means well, has good intentions but has grabbed on to one or self-help concepts and twisted them to mean they aren't enough. Here are some examples.

 There is a right way. I just need to figure it out. There is no right way. There are countless ways to do it. What may be the right way for you isn't the right way for someone else. Frequently when we are looking for the RIGHT way, it is a sign of fear paralysis. We don't want to move until we know the right move, which usually leaves us stuck.

 If I think happy, I will be happy.  Fill in the blank here. This concept is specifically The Secret, gone amuck. We have been told we need to pay attention to our thoughts. If we intend it, then it will come. So think positively, and you will feel better. Now, I agree, there are times we let ourselves get stuck in negative thoughts, negative patterns, and we need to change those thoughts into more positive thinking. AND there are times that we have real pain that we need to deal with. Yes, while I definitely believe when we think happier, we are happier, I also believe we have to put a little work into being happy. The idea that if I think about $100, it will suddenly appear in my mailbox is HIGHLY unlikely.

 I need to accept people where they are. Frequently this one is where I think people go amuck. I fully believe that we need to accept people where they are. One of my life mottos is 'they are doing the best they can with what they have,' AND that doesn't mean I need to put up with abusive, hostile, or hurtful behavior. Accepting someone for who they are and what they are coping with, and the pain they are in doesn't mean I have to take that pain on and be hurt by their pain. Accepting someone for where they also include knowing your boundaries.

 I need to be genuine and honest with everyone. I want to add the words "with wisdom" to this sentence. So it would read, I need to be genuine and honest with everyone, using wisdom. Yes, I believe we need to be grounded and authentic in our lives, but not everyone in this world is safe. So we need to have a little wisdom around with which we share our authentic selves. We can still be genuine and authentic without bearing our souls. We can still own our space, be aware of our insecurity and take care of ourselves without opening ourselves to people who don't get it and won't understand. Wisdom: to create appropriate boundaries is critical.

 Bottom line, the goal of self-help is to feel less angst, be in pain less frequently and learn how to interact in the world from a place of grounded authenticity. The goal is not to beat ourselves up, open ourselves up to unnecessary pain and feel like we are doing it wrong. Wake up each morning, be the best you possible, bring awareness to your pain, notice your mistakes, and move forward, making amends as necessary. Self-help is a great space to start learning about ourselves.

 Real growth begins when we can enter the world and interact with loving-kindness with ourselves and those around us. And when we struggle with that task, having curiosity around why and attempting to learn better for the future. So give yourself a break. You ARE doing the best you can with what you have, and that's a beautiful thing.

A Call To Stop Dog-Earring

This weekend during coffee o'clock, my nearest and dearest turned to me and said, "You know I was thinking last night, real change has to start with more than just turning down the corners of a magazine."

I looked at him inquisitively, and he went on to say, "You know how people mark catalogs by turning down the corners of the page. Well, real change requires more than just having an interest in the subject."

The insight reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine last week. I told her about a book that I had just found, which I thought might be helpful to her. I asked if she had heard of it, and she replied, "Yep, actually, I bet it is sitting on the bookshelf over there" We both laughed knowingly. One of our many inside jokes is the number of books and resources we have purchased and never read. This use to be a HUGE problem for me. I could have purchased stock in Amazon. Anytime I had an inkling to learn something new or start a new adventure, I would go out and buy a book (ok, maybe 2-3 books), and then they would come. I MIGHT crack them open and skim them, or I might just put them on the bookshelf telling myself I would read them at a later time', but never actually getting around to it.

Finally, a few years ago, I had a little 'come to Jesus' moment’, as I call it, and realized not only was I wasting a lot of money, but there was a deeper problem going on. I took the safe road, made the easy move. I was looking for the resource, doing the research but not making any fundamental changes. I was kidding myself that I would learn photography, color mandalas, or train my dog. The list can go on and on.

We often buy a book or take a class thinking we will be changed just in the purchase alone. But change is greater than a purchase, greater than even reading the book. Change is a consistent process of action. Sometimes that action moves us forward; sometimes, it moves us backward; sometimes, it is learning how just to be. But it is an action. Change requires pushing our comfort zone paying attention to when we get uncomfortable. Change requires awareness of how we feel when we pick up a book or walk into a class to learn something new. Without this awareness, we unknowingly put up roadblocks and passively prevent change. Maybe we need to pick up the book and do a quick skim, maybe we need just to read chapters 1-5 and let it percolate, maybe we need just to dive in and embrace the fear and learn something new.

The point is it is time to stop dog-earring our way through life!!! I have been just 'dog-earring' the page of the things I want to change and learn all those years. What ideas have you been just dog-earring in your own life?

The Moments of And

 AND, it is such a lovely word, all-encompassing, inclusive. Over the past couple of years, I have changed how I talk to include and more often. I love you, and  I am hurt that you didn't call. I am unhappy in my career, and  I know it pays the bills.

In using and more often, I believe we open ourselves up to the possibilities of both. As humans, I have also noticed that we don't like holding both, the messy place of I want to go back to grad school, and I am scared to death of that change. 

We want things to be packaged neat and tidy. We want to believe that once I make a change or make a decision, the hard part is over. Unfortunately, not that is when the messy begins—moments of and happen all the time in our lives.

• I need to get some work done, and I need to catch up on my sleep.

• I need to work out, and I am behind on work.

• I am sad about the break-up, and I know it was the best thing for me.

• I want to figure out what comes next in my life, and I am exhausted right now.

• I am happy about all the changes in my life, and change is stressful.

We have AND's all the time. Holding them both is the challenge. Because bottom line it is hard to feel two contradictory emotions at one time!! AND the more awareness we can bring to how often those moments happen in our lives, the more space we give to both truths, the more we can allow emotions to surface, the happier we will be.

Growth comes in "the moments of and." When we learn how to recognize the beauty in both, start getting comfortable with the messy and begin to make space for two completely separate truths, then we start to see life for what it truly is: a fun, challenging, exhilarating, exhausting, joyous. terrifying ride!!

Not all Running is Good for You

Over the past few days, I have been in a bit of a mood. I have been overly anxious and a bit cranky; many of my 'go-to' things weren't working. The activities that usually 'fill up my bucket' weren't helping me improve my mood. Then I realized I was in run mode. What is run mode?

Run mode is when you have something big in your life that you aren't facing. Maybe it is a significant stressor or sadness. Maybe it is a conflict or a fear. It can be something relatively small, but your mind convinces you that it is HUGE and you need to run. You run from thing to thing, from activity to activity, looking for something to fill the hole to fill the anxiety created by this stressor. Some signs of run mode for me are: nothing satisfies me, a tendency to be anxious and critical (of self and others), and a fear of being alone, so I book myself up with activities. I run from myself. 

Sometimes if you are good at it (like I am), you can put your stressor energy onto something completely unrelated like your relationship, children, friends. You might start a fight with a partner because you know it is 'safe .' You can put all your stress energy into that fight. The KEY is to face the fear, anger, conflict, sadness, not to run from it. The first key is to notice that you are in run mode at all. For example, yesterday, as I was driving home and realized I had an entire evening of no plans, I went into a cold sweat. Because I usually look forward to an evening of no plans, I immediately knew that something was wrong, and I realized, 'hey, I am in run mode.' At first, you might not catch yourself in run mode until days later, or it will be one day later, and then it will be in the moment. The goal is to catch yourself before you do too much collateral damage. Once you catch yourself in run mode, then the goal is to figure out what is stressing you, what is the source: a conflict, anger, sadness.

First, it is helpful to get quiet with yourself, journal, take a walk, or talk to a friend. In essence, the goal is to do the opposite of what you really want to do: stop running and face yourself. But the beauty is once you stop running and face the issue, it becomes much less powerful. Once you express the emotions you have been running from (e.g., cry, scream, yell, etc.), you will wonder why you have spent all that time running. This is a powerful and challenging process. As I said, I have been working on this issue for years--spiraling up. It is one of those that we need to stay aware of. Much of the everyday anxiety we feel is because we are in run mode--we are trying to avoid something that might be negative, so we create anxiety around other things to keep the stress/conflict at bay. It might feel counter-intuitive, but we Live Happier when we can face our emotions and not default to run mode. What are your run mode symptoms? What tends to be your trigger for run mode (conflict, anger, sadness)?

Embrace the Mess--Holding Both

The biggest (and at times, hardest) lesson I have learned is life isn't black and white. Life is a big, colorful mess. Life is full of emotions, thoughts, and needs, few of which we can put neatly in a box or precisely label. In fact, sometimes, two opposite extremes are usually true: you love your partner, AND you are frustrated with him/her. You support your child in playing a sport, AND you are worried about his/her safety. You like your job, AND you are having a bad day. You are sad your parents are getting older, AND you enjoy every moment you spend with them. We have opposite extremes all the time--a friend of mine calls it 'holding both.' We are holding two extremes of being happy and sad or frustrated and thankful.

When we embrace the concept of 'holding both,' we can fully experience life. I have a client I will call her Sara who recently lost her mother to cancer. When she first came to see me, her mother had just been diagnosed. 

Throughout the process of her mom's death, which was relatively quick, I encouraged her to hold both--to express her sadness at losing her mom and feeling the gratitude of the moments when she and her mom laughed and shared. After her mom had died, Sara said that if she hadn't had the concept of holding both, she would have missed many special moments with her mom.

Examples of holding both happen all the time in our day to day lives: 

• being frustrated at a co-worker and understanding why they messed up,

• being sad about a loss of a job and relieved that you didn't get it,

• being angry at your partner and sympathetic at the same time.

Frequently we try to squelch one of the feelings because it doesn't fit into a black and white world, or it isn't logical. Well, my friend, life is not logical. Life is messy, full of contrasts and conflicts; it is rich in color. Be curious and supportive of all your emotions, all the many colors you experience in your life!